Scene

In brief: Festival Starting Point debuted at the Kaunas Chamber Theatre on September 7th-9th. The festival theme is story - how the narrative is created here and now. Stories, problems and solutions to them in the plays were presented by Vytautas Magnus University performing arts students, KTU Theatre Studio, Valentinas Masalskis' acting course students and Apeiron Theatre.

The first work is by director Eimantė Urmonaitė. She and Vytautas Magnus University performing arts students presented the first part of the play Instruction titled Creation of the World. The source of play's ideas and inspirations is fairy tale Witch's Hut. The director chose the aspect of bringing fire to home, which grew into the topic of creation of the world.

The play Either Me or You (director V. Masalskis) by troupe Dot, consisting of Valentinas Masalskis' second year students, is their second play. It analyzes the issue of bullying, which touches upon two current trends - school bullying and anti-Semitism. During the discussion that took place after the play, the actors revealed that in preparation of the play they underwent logoterapy, where they had to express their painful experiences. It was not a part of the play material, but it played a role in creating the roles.

KTU Theatre Studio 44 with the play Summer Day based on the play by Polish playwright Slawomir Mrožek tried to touch on the topic of suicide. The main characters of the play are Loser (Andrius Tamoševičius) who fails regularly and Winner (Viktoras Mickūnas) who is always doing well. Both characters are depressed because of their lives and they choose death, but this planned suicide process is disturbed by a Lady (Monika Stavavojūtė). It should be noted that these three actors, unlike all the other participants of the festival are not theatre professionals or acting students. IT guy, philosopher and a manager represent the amateur theatre.

The festival was also visited by the Apeiron Theatre from Klaipėda. It invited the audience to the performance-theatrical fairy tale Šiurpės. In spring I have seen this theatre's play Mammalian Crossing which looks at the current problems of modern society as well as traumatic experiences. However, in this festival, directors Greta Kazlauskaitė and Eglė Kazickaitė presented a completely different format, both visually and in terms of the topic. As stated by the creators, the starting point was the festival of ethnic culture, the organizers of which decided to newly interpret the Lithuanian folk tales